Cob Jockey

Alright, I finally have the green light to share my shitty February with you all. Buckle up, because this saga has more twists and turns than a checkout line romance novel.

The whole time I had her, Aeres was not really for sale. She was going to go home and be a momma unless the PERFECT situation came up, and wouldn't you know, one did. A current Castleberry Cob owner contacted Lisa looking for basically Aeres, in a nutshell, and is the absolute perfect show home for her.

She flew in to try her February 5th (fully vaccinated, so jealous, I miss flying so much!), and they clicked from the very beginning. Not one to hide anything, I let the prospective buyer groom her, tack her up and turn her out when we were done too, wanting her to get the full Aeres experience. Aeres just absolutely loved her.

All cleaned up by the dream team the night before

The buyer (or long-term leaser, I don't know and don't care what the mechanics of the sale end up being, Lisa will do whatever ends up being right for the horse), who I will call Alice for the sake of the blog, reminded me so much of myself in that she's a great rider but a little nervous on a strange horse, and she told us before she got on she definitely didn't want to jump her.

(Hello I feel that, I was afraid to jump FLOUNDER last time I rode at Kate's barn, and I'm the Flounder Fan Club President).

Best school pony

But it says a lot about how much they clicked that, by the time she finished flatting, Alice trusted Aeres enough to ask if she could pop her over a crossrail. In anticipation of this, Mary and I had left the barrel line up from her last jump school two days before, just to give still-green-over-fences Aeres the best chance of success if the buyer asked to pop her over something, and that all worked exactly as we envisioned it. They were perfect for each other.

This exercise (Mary aboard here). We took the barrels out for the trial.

Watching them go around, it felt SO GOOD, I had this big stupid grin on my face the entire time. To see this horse that came in with ulcers and ear shyness and head tossing and a Jesus-take-the-wheel canter transition and a complete lack of understanding of snaffle contact go around like she could get her first and second level Bronze scores tomorrow with a new-to-her amateur rider felt AMAZING. She found her person and her calling, and it felt good to be a part of that story.

The next couple of weeks were a blur of text messages - getting the shipper arranged, figuring out if we could fit a semi up the driveway, and coordinating shots/coggins/health certificate (with a new vet, because my awesome sporthorse vet up and quit and moved to Florida this winter - can't say I blame her but what a loss for the area). Finally it was all set that Aeres would leave on Monday February 22nd.

And then. 

The Thursday before she was to get on the bus to go to Alice, I got a text and a picture from the night barn crew.

"I think Aeres is choking. She laid down in her stall after dinner and she got right back up but I was worried she had some gas so I walked her for 20-30 minutes. She let me take a look in her mouth and I'm seeing some food paste in the back."

What came out of Aeres' mouth

...to be continued